Posted
by
msmash
on Monday June 20, 2016 @12:03PM
from the it's-a-boat,-it's-a-car,-it's-boatcar dept.

It appears a Tesla Model S car can float and effectively drive on water. Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted a video of a Model S car which was able to float well through a flooded tunnel in Kazakhstan. Musk also noted that the company "definitely" doesn't recommend trying this -- but still vouched for the availability of this feature. The Guardian reports: The car appears to power through the water using the thrust of the wheels turning in the water, as the bow wave laps over the car's bonnet. Most internal combustion engine cars are sunk in water when the exhaust becomes flooded, which is why serious off-roaders have big exhaust scoops leading to the roof. Electric cars don't suffer from that particular issue, but how the rest of the car will react is unknown.

It actually has enough power to, versus its weight, if one were to retrofit the drivetrain to turn a prop and affix some reasonably efficient wings and flight surfaces. A typical Cessna weighs a bit over a tonne and has an engine in the ballpark of 120kW or so. Even the cheapest Model S is about 2 tonnes and puts out about 250kW. The high performance versions are about 200kg heavier and pump out vastly more power.

Heck, you could probably fly one with just a big parasail for lift - the L/D ratio of 4-5 is probably good enough, at least for the mid-range versions and possibly the low-end as well. You just need to find a good way to get that motor power going to one or more props.

While your Cessna needs to run its engine on a substantial fraction of its rated power (typically 60% or more), any decent car will only need low double digit kW to cruise. Comparing the rated power is utterly misleading, and your Tesla aircraft would drain its batteries and overheat the motor within minutes.

And yet the OP is correct, it could fly, under it's own power. Perhaps just not for very long. Or add bigger, more efficient wings, fly slower, and you can get the required power down almost as low as you care to go. It's not like he proposed turning it into a helicopter.

Came here to say this. Intake snorkels are common, I've never seen an "exhaust scoop" (or any kind of raised exhaust on an actual offroad truck, vs. a coal-rolling bro-dozer) and they aren't necessary - a turndown at the exhaust tip will keep the exhaust from flooding under light submersion, and if you go deep, just stay on the gas and the exhaust flow will keep the water out.

But it's not specially for Tesla, nor is it Tesla's fault the government subsidizes it. It's the governments' fault. And in a democracy where the government is chosen, it is, thus, the citizens' fault. Basically: it's your fault.;-)

Well, ok, I'm sure you voted for the good guys who never give out subsidies, but still...

Point being, the parent poster was specifically calling out Tesla, and thus implied they were getting some sort of unfair and unethical advantage. But it's not limited to Tesla, and it's debatable whether it's unethical. If the government gave you a taxbreak so you'd only have to pay half your taxes, would you refuse because you thought it unfair? I very much doubt it. I know I wouldn't.

So... is it necessary and a good thing the government masively subsidises stuff like electric cars, solar panels, windmills, etc. Hell no. It costs loads of money and often just keeps non-profitable companies afloat with taxpayers' money. Not saying it's always the case, and maybe Tesla would survive without the subsidies, but that's what it boils down to most of the time.

However, the ones to blame is the government allowing, nay, stimulating such squander. NOT the companies who just make use of the money that is thrown at them.

In my country they're starting subsidising electric cars too, now. It's foolishness. Getting 3000 euro or not for a 50000 euro Tesla for instance, will not deter or stimulate a person rich enough to buy one. I mean, if you're rich enough to buy one in the first place, and they want one, they will buy one, regardless of whether they get a 3000 euro reduction. This is just an added bonus to the rich, which don't really need them. so the theory that it's need to 'stimulate' innovative technologies so they break through on the market, is basically bull. It doesn't really help, and it costs the populace dearly anyway.

When an electric car will go down to 15-20000 euro, and becomes viable for ordinary citizens, THEN it would matter in deciding to buy one or not. But at that time, they'll undoubtedly stop giving subsidies, as they always do. Because it's beginning to cost too much, and the rich elite (many of whom are the same politicians that voted for the subsidies in the first place) has already got one anyway. Of course, the official explanation by then is that 'the goal has been achieved' and thus no more subsidies are necessary.

It's all crap. If a new technology is better than old technology, it will manage to break through with or without taxing your citizens, including the poorest, to pay for a sweet bonus for the rich. There are very few technologies that have inherent advantages, and yet that need heavy subsidies to stay afloat, certainly for longer than a few years. After that, it just becomes a monetary black hole where you pour in taxpayers' money endlessly, so a company which isn't competitive stays afloat while we're paying for it - often doubly so.

It's a distortion of the free market, and I believe the disadvantages of such a system are far bigger than the occasional advantage of having a new technology that might or might not have broken through without it, for the simple reason that most WOULD have broken through eventually anyway, if they're really that good and better than old technology.

They are not subsidies strictly spoken, but I guess one could call it financial advantages, though. That said, it's not specifically for Tesla, and it's not Tesla that is asking for it; it's just the government that is doing it. So one can hardly blame Tesla for it.

Yup. My first Japanese car (a Subaru) lasted fourteen years. That's longer than both american cars I'd owned previously, put together, twice over, and then some.

So, 14 years.....divided by two cars = 7 years per car.....twice over = 3.5 years per car....."and then some."So you only got 3 years each out of two American cars? What'd you do? Run them into an overpass abutment when you were driving home piss drunk at 3 in the morning?I've never had an American car last less than 14 years. And this is in Canada, where they're exposed to all sorts of cold weather related crap: salt, sand, freezing cold starts for 4 months of the year, etc.You do realize you need to ac

Obviously you're not buying Fords then. 2 of mine were Fords and they were terrible. And after I bought a Hyundai a friend of mine had a 2001 Focus which seemed like an all right car. Then he drove it over to my place one day and couldn't get it started. Turned out it was this problem:

http://www.fordproblems.com/trends/key-stuck-ignition/

And funny you mention Canada... he had it towed to the dealer and since we're in Canada apparently Ford USA was covering those replacements under warranty, but Ford Cana

Yup. My first Japanese car (a Subaru) lasted fourteen years. That's longer than both american cars I'd owned previously, put together, twice over, and then some. And it never broke down. The only maintenance I did were the scheduled services recommended in the manual, and replacement of consumables like tires and brake pads. The same can definitely not be said of the Ford or Chrysler. For that matter, I could have gotten a few more years out of the Subaru. But it was due for a new set of brakes plus a timing belt & water pump. The cost of that was more than the value of the car. And I'm more of a city than outdoors person these days, so the mileage penalty of all-wheel drive doesn't make sense anymore.

My rule now is that to even be worth consideration, the VIN must start with the letter "J". Anything else is a non-starter.

"Most internal combustion engine cars are sunk in water when the exhaust becomes flooded, which is why serious off-roaders have big exhaust scoops leading to the roof"

No. Most internal combustion engines are destroyed via hydrolock when (significant) water enters the intake of the engine. Because it can't be compressed, the engine basically explodes internally (pistons, valves, etc, etc). If water enters the exhaust and the engine is running, this is usually not a big deal because the air pressure from the engine will push it back out. Also, the exhaust valves don't suck in air so it will take some serious water pressure to get past those.

Typically, to combat this, the intake will have a snorkel attached to it and that will be as high as possible, thus preventing water entry into the intake. The exhaust may be raised as well (but that is not absolutely necessary) and this is a serious consideration if the engine is to be turned off while submerged (as then water will enter the combustion chamber through the exhaust valves, hydrolocking when you try to start it again).

If water enters the exhaust and the engine is running, this is usually not a big deal because the air pressure from the engine will push it back out. Also, the exhaust valves don't suck in air so it will take some serious water pressure to get past those.

One only has to look at the wet exhaust systems used in boats for an example of what happens when water enters the exhaust. Hell, they even introduce water in them deliberately.

Right - I think they got the purpose of the "roof" Snorkel wrong. But these guys are Bloggers and not Journalists.

Years ago I remember hearing a warning from a car manufacturer who stated that customers shouldn't drive through deep water because an Electrical engine component was on the bottom of the car. When this component was submerged it would burn out and shut down the engine - and it wasn't an easy replacement (meaning both the part and labor was expensive).

On older cars, the distributor cap would get damaged by submersion. Not a big deal, but it would definitely leave you stranded. Most modern cars do not float level, if at all, which leads to the classic nose-down 'duck pose' you see cars take in a flood. Aside from the beetle (which had different weight distribution due to the small rear engine), I'm not aware of any common production vehicle that will float level. Front wheel drives are simply too nose-heavy.
And Jeeps actually have terrible door seals

Actually it is lubricating, I don't think it has a high shear strength and it's volatiles to non-volatile ratio isn't high so it only leaves a very thin layer of low viscosity lubricant after it dries; this can be an advantage.

My first car was a 1981 Chevy Malibu with a small block Chevy V8. The distributor was at the top rear of the engine, behind the air intake. I could hit a > foot deep puddle at 50mph, and it wouldn't bat an eye. Sure, it slowed down a lot due to the water pressure against the front tires, but I never once had it cause a miss on even a single cylinder.The front wheel drives that were becoming popular at the time, though, all had the ignition systems on the front of the engine, behind the grill and radia

Exhaust valves are usually very hot and any water touching them will probably warp them to the point that the engine will stop running due to lack of compression. I once had a motorcycle which got warped valves because the exhaust pipes came off while driving and the cold air entering the short distance between where the pipe attached to the hear and the valve warped it.

It's not a fun thing to repair.

I/C engines run on heat. any excess cooling causes them to run badly, if at all.

I know the snorkel kit for M151A2 [wikipedia.org] army jeep attached to the intake, the engine had a sealed ignition system, and there were floor drains which had to be open while fording so the truck would sink to the bottom and not float away. I'm not sure the snorkelling kit was ever used as intended, driving a vehicle while up to your shoulders in water is a tough sell to people who have loaded rifles and hand grenades.

It wasn't deep in the video at all. The white juke was no more than its doorsills deep (and was moving albeit slowly as not to cause a wave), which is like 18 cm at most. The air intake on the juke is also quite a bit higher - around 70 cm from the ground if not more (around the same height as the lowest point of the steering wheel). The Testa didn't float at all, it was just driving on the bottom.

GM stock price slumped a whopping 1.3% [thestreet.com] on news of its ignition recall that was actually killing people.

Apple hires some engineers with car experience, everyone guesses that they'll be making electric cars, and "OMG, this could be the end of Tesla!" (The stock drops 10% in a day).

Analyst price targets for Tesla are all over the map [marketbeat.com], going from $150 to $385.

Removing the opinions of talk show hosts/car collectors for a moment, perhaps what these statements truly highlight is an utter inability to predict a damn thing when it comes to the incredibly unstable stock market.

Back when electric cars were DC traction motors jerry-rigged into compact cars with a trunk full of lead acid batteries, I got into several conversations with some greenies about what it would take to get the public into them. With some level of extraordinary prescience, I would say, "When electric cars have the comfort, performance and price of IC engine cars, we will buy them. Nobody wants to drive around in a glorified golf cart with open sides and 30 miles range."

Man, I don't know who you were talking to, but I never heard any electric car enthusiast say something like that.

Ever.

Sounds like you really talked to some losers. Most of the electric car/motorcycle converters I've talked to wanted to do it so they wouldn't have to buy gasoline, or wanted to do something different, or liked the idea of how smooth driving an electric is.

Analyst prediction of the future in the market is always just wild ass guessing. They can provide some data to help people compare companies in terms of historic and current data, but their projections into the future are like horoscopes.

I'll say that the price deltas make a lot of sense, actually. The perception of GM market value is based mostly on their concrete standing in the market.

For Tesla, the market value of the company is far more speculative about the future. So credible stories about another

I just hate how everything Musk now says is treated as gospel here on/.

I respect the hell out of the guy and what he's working towards.. but can we get rid of the "Tesla is so awesome" article quota? A lot of what is reported here about Tesla is about as innovative as Apple's rounded corner.

I can't find it now but there's an annual get together at a lake in Ohio that celebrates cars that can also travel in the water.

Yeah, I don't know what it is with the Tesla hating. But that said, *this* particular bit of hype does deserve to be condemned.

(1) The driver in the video is a moron. You never drive your car into a situation you aren't sure you can drive it out of -- particularly one involving water. People get stranded that way (and often killed, if water is involved).

(2) Because you saw some guy do it doesn't mean your car will do it. If it's not part of the design specifications of the car, the car can't be relied u

Musk didn't say (less even vouch) for the availability of this "feature". It's not a feature. It's a capability inherent to any car with closed cabin. All cars will float for a brief period of time (which is what Musk said: it will float for a brief period of time).

The batteries and electrical system is isolated enough to sustain sub-bar pressures and will hapilly drive along as the engine is not dependant on any air intake system not being flooded.

Technically, all EVs should be able to do this for a period. DONT drive across the lake.

Ranged-extended vehicles (Gen 1 & 2 Volt, BMW i3, Fisker Karma) dont have this luxury. While the electrics will continue working, any flooding of the ICE will require major repairs.

I'm guessing it wouldn't go fast or far, but it might actually be useful enough for inland lake recreational purposes. Especially on a 30' cruiser which probably already has a pair of big block gasoline engines and a 5kw generator. The batteries vs. the engines would be a wash, and the gen set could provide some charging or limp-back drive power.

In general, engines on boats short of yacht class are relatively ancient by automotive standards (e.g. carburetor was the norm until very recently, and engine diagnostics are much less sophisticated for boats)

I do a lot of boating on a large inland lake, and from what I've seen the Sea Ray Sundancers of ~30 ft (Sundancer 280s to 320s) seldom run at anywhere near full throttle. I'd guess something like 10-12 mph is pretty common, with about 30-something MPH being wide open on plane.

But on those boats, 30-something is really wide open engine-wise -- usually a pair of V8s (350 or better) running within 1000 rpm of the red line. As you say, the engines on these boats are ancient by auto standards -- Mercury still(

As a 'serious offroader' myself, I can assure you it's not the exhaust you have to worry about. It's the air intake. Engines have plenty of power to force air out the exhaust while underwater. Sucking water into the engine, however, is something that ICE's really don't like.

I am sorry, but that car wasn't floating. The wheels and tires on a Tesla are going to have no forward thrust, because the entire wheel will be submerged, meaning the top of the wheel is thrusting backwards just as well as the bottom is thrusting forward.

The low profile tires on the Tesla are going to have minimal thrust anyway, because the tread is not even vaguely paddle like. For reference look at this video [youtube.com] of the bigfoot monster truck floating across a lake. Even that truck with duallies on it (total of 8 monster truck wheels), which did float high enough for the big mudders to act like paddles, didn't make as quick forward progress as an old man in a canoe, and was extremely slow to respond to steering input.

The tesla in the video not only has enough power to push a big bow wave, it has enough steering traction to slalom through the other cars on the road. The weight of that car was obviously enough to keep the tires on the pavement at that water depth. I am not denying that the Tesla could float, nor am I denying that it may be water tight enough to float well, but it will be pretty much powerless and uncontrolled while floating.

Mr. Musk is very proud of his car, but on this video I call BS. That is not floating.

hmm, that is a point. If the wheel stays up in the fender it may act as a very inefficient impeller, taking in water at the rear of the fender opening, the fender liner acting as the casing of a very poorly coupled pump.

It would work better if it was a fully skirted fender, which they aren't, so most of the water being pumped is going to just blast out sideways, mostly out, because the inside of the wheel well is lower that the outside.

Just guessing, without modeling, I think the thrust would be mostly down, with some backwards.

I don't know my Tesla models that well, but if it is AWD any thruster effect from the front wheels would be less, because of the larger wheel well clearances for turning, and would disappear almost entirely when the wheels were turned left or right at all.

Teslas probably have an advantage in this regard, because they have a pretty taught suspension, and probably won't droop as much as the cars us mere mortals drive, which at full droop can be almost entirely out of the wheel well, below the body of the car.

You are correct, I had not considered the ducting action of the fenders. However I stand by my final judgement that the car in the video is not floating.

The main problem I have with the cars is they are being undersold. The quality of the parts and engineering warrants a much larger price tag and further tesla isn't really profiting on them, rather Musk seems to be trying to achieve market penetration at the cost of profits. It's unlikely they will be able to deliver that quality at that price in any long term way short of pulling an apple and locking them into some kind of service.

What you did was restate a simplified/broken version Tesla's publicly stated strategy and phrase it like you uncovered a big secret. Tesla has repeatedly stated that the goal of their current vehicles is not to make a profit but to act as a proving ground for the development of the manufacturing infrastructure. Electric vehicles suffer from a major lack of economics of scale. Thus to make competitive vehicles they sell them for little to no margin. Once scale is achieved Tesla's goal is to be able produc

Never said it was any kind of secret, those are your words. The thing is you may get economies of scale but that does not mean they will continue to provide the same contemporary value. Musk can't ride investor money forever and will need to make a decent margin, eventually without any subsidy beyond what the auto industry typically gets. This will lower quality to value over what is present today and bring it more in line with traditional profit driven companies (pun intended). If you think he is des

My brother used that same piece of fine old music The Blue Danube) in our Typewriter Repairmen underwater robot video. YouTube saw fit to mute the sound due to some copyright claim. Bastards. http://selectric.org/nurc/introfinal.wmv

Off roaders use high intakes mainly to reduce the amount of dust sucked in which will eventually clog the air filter. Obviously it would help going through water. Usually water is flowing and as soon as the car reaches a depth where is will float you are going to go "down the creek without a paddle."

What are you talking about? If you're talking about the suspension issue, the NHTSA investigated and found no problem with Tesla suspensions (and furthermore that 93% of the complaints were fraudulent).

He's also talking about that one incident where a Tesla ran over a chunk of metal on the highway [engadget.com], resulting in a horrible fire that was isolated to the engine compartment, and required that the driver pull over and shut the car down. (Rather than the much safer standard vehicle alternative of exploding, crashing, and suddenly ceasing to have a working engine while driving at high speeds on a crowded highway). Tesla's total dismissal of the incident [teslamotors.com] is just typical of their head-in-the-sand tactics to ignoring real problems.

Electronics in automotive environments tend to be very well sealed, because they are exposed to all kinds of crap. Rain is the least of it: snow, salt, sand, mud, marine air, gasoline, motor oil, washer fluid - all of these would utterly destroy electronics if they were not well protected against it. The electronics enclosures, cabling, and connectors used in automobilies are typically rated to IP55 at least, and typically are IP67. Once you have sealed it well enough to keep out all the crap you'd encounter on the road, you get protection against temporary submersion more or less for free.

And you can't extinguish a Lithium fire. You just have to wait until it burns out on its own.

What utter nonsense. Lithium is not burning via some Li + Li --> Li_2 reaction in the absence of other elements. Remove the source of molecules (e.g. water) that lithium's combining with and the fire stops.

What utter nonsense. Lithium is not burning via some Li + Li --> Li_2 reaction in the absence of other elements.

That is true, but in the case of Lithium batteries the required oxidizer is an essential component of the battery itself. No outside chemical input is required for the battery to burn or explode; the military has investigated the use of lithium batteries as improvised grenades.

The problem with water ingress would not necessarily be that it serves as a concentrated oxidizer, but rather that it may short out the batteries, causing sufficient local heating to trigger a self-sustaining chain reaction within the

Yes, you can. The stuff is called "Lith-X", and we were trained in its use. Lith-X was applied by the bucket load. For very small fires, like foils, something that resembled a salt shaker was used.Of only minor interest here: we were working with Lithium-6...

LOL.. When new and the door seals actually worked and the heater channels where not rusted out, yea they could float... My old 65' beetle would have sunk like a scuttled German U-Boat on the high seas when I owned it. A cross wind was more than just an adventure in uncommanded lane changes, it also blew stuff around inside the car because the "door seals" didn't seal anything... Imagine driving this across Indiana in -10 weather.... Can you say COLD, with roasted ankles?

My VW mini-motorhome had a piece of PVC Drain Pipe to replace the rusted out heat duct, worked like a champ! You could also get electric boaster-heaters so the windshield would defrost before you got to work in the morning.